Muzaffar Ghaffaar is a poet, scholar, cultural figure and translator. He has a host of publications on diverse subjects to his credit. His “main body of work is under the umbrella name Masterworks of Punjabi Sufi Poetry, 29+ volumes. Books on Baba Fareed Gangshakar, Baba Nanak, Shah Husayn (3 vols), Sultan Baahu, Bulleh Shah (2 vols), Sachal Sarmast and Khwaaja Ghulam Fareed have been published. The series has moved to qissas with a four volume Heer Damodar. A six volume Heer Waaris Shah is now in your hands,” reads the flap. (The unusual spellings of the proper names used by the author have been kept intact out of respect for him). The book has been published by Ferozsons.

No doubt Heer is the legend that continues to endlessly fascinate Punjab and Waris Shah is the poet who never ceases to stir our people’s imagination with magic of his inimitable art of storytelling. In the beginning Waris Shah states: “Friends came and proposed to me, let’s make Heer’s love anew…/ Accepting the command of beloved friends, composed a season of wonder…”. Mere retelling of a tale already known doesn’t make much sense unless the poet sees in it the possibility of exploring what has remained hitherto unexplored. Four elements, broadly speaking, constitute the bedrock of the tale retold by Waris Shah. (1) He undertakes a creative endeavour to capture the essence of pastoral and agrarian society spanning over more than five thousand years. (2) He points to a new gender equation in a patriarchy-ridden society by creating eternally defiant male and female characters that challenge the established order based on gender inequality. (3) He, debunking the mythical superiority of foreign Muslim rulers, mercilessly critiques all the anti-people extractive politico-economic and socio-cultural institutions. He exposes and openly ridicules the discourse of the aliens promoted by non-indigenous elites and clerics building a highly critical counter discourse. (4) He stretches the language to its ultimate limits by creating phrases, compounds that may look syntactically incorrect but perfectly pregnant with meanings and thus acceptable. At places he creates an oddly new syntagmatic structure of the Punjabi language. No other poet has dared to take such liberty with our language in its long history. That’s why one of the last great classical poets Mian Muhammad, himself a master craftsman, writes about Waris Shah: ‘It’s beyond us to raise an accusing finger at any of his phrase [haraf unhan te angal dharni nahi majaal asanu]’?

To translate such a poet into another language is always a challenging task. But translation is the only way that takes us to the poetic landscapes created by poets in languages other than our own. Muzaffar Ghaffaar’s Heer Waris Shah Within Reach in six volumes is a monumental work reflecting the translator’s dedication and discipline. That he succeeded in translating such a great poetic work by the sweat of his brow boggles one’s mind. The text, he uses, is basically the one edited by Shaikh Abdul Aziz who is considered the most reliable editor of Heer Waris to date. It also has smattering of texts edited by some other editors.

Mr. Ghaffaar tells us about the format he follows; each volume contains ‘Text in Nastaliq, Gurmukhi, Roman/ extensive glossary, poetic translation, line-by-line discourse.’ The blurb says: ‘Heer was well-known centuries before Waaris Shah undertook using it as a vehicle to give expression to discourses on philosophy, social interaction, human behavour, the state of institutions, historical appraisals, traditions, stereotypes, the poet’s response to invaders, the various angles from which different people viewed things, etc.’

The multidimensionality of Heer is perhaps what inspired him to translate it into English in order to make it accessible to wider readership, national and international. It is poetic translation which implies that translator had a licence though limited in scope to move away from what was literal in the original if and when necessary to make it stand as poetry in a foreign language with a different cultural milieu. Secondly, the translation is in rhyme. The intended purpose of use of rhyme by the translator is perhaps to convey in some measure the feel of the classical structure of the original composition. But the flip side is that rhyming because of its structural compulsions can force a translator to make compromises, of course in good faith, by creating what’s twice removed from the original.

Mr. Ghaffaar being a poet of English language and having command over the language treads a fine line. He is as close to the original as one can be in a format he has chosen. Let’s savour one of the most celebrated stanzas that describes a dawn of the quintessential Punjabi village where compassionless Mullah pressured by villagers reluctantly allows itinerant Ranjha to spend a night in the mosque. ‘When with first bird-chirpings travellers strode, in milk entered churners/ Got up and rushed for bathing, those who had conjugal-bed pleasures/ Ranjha left, and came to the river bank, for taking across baggage were loading mariners/ Waris Shah, lordy Luddan takes a bribe, fat vessel of honey loaded by traders”. It almost conveys what the poet says sans the overpowering magic of evocative language used in the original.

Mr. Muzaffar Ghaffaar deserves all the accolades for achieving an astonishing feat that demands a huge amount of physical as well as cerebral labour. One hopes that he would consider prose translations of some of the classical poets worth the effort. Prose translation in our times sounds contemporary and can convey more with less effort to modern ears which find rhyming an anachronism. We for example already have Heer’s translation in prose titled “The adventures of Hir and Ranjha/ A translation into English prose by Charles Frederick Usborne from the Punjabi poem of Waris Shah” though translation in question is more poetic. Mr. Ghaffaar’s Heer Waris Shah Within Reach must be in each and every library of the country. It has a long shelf life. As for individuals, do buy if you can afford it. Your spend wouldn’t go waste as the Heer Waris is a sumptuous literary and cultural smorgasbord.